2008 Vouvray Moelleux 1ére Trie Clos du Bourg

I was blown away by the wines I tasted from Domaine Huet. The 2019s Secs in particular are magnificent Vouvrays that no Loire lover will want to be without. Longtime winemaker Jean-Bernard Berthomé turned out a glorious set of wines in his last vintage at the domaine. Clos du Bourg in particular is stunning. Even with the searingly hot and dry conditions, the Huet 2019s retain incredible energy and vibrancy. The 2018s in this lineup are every bit as impressive.

Under Noel Pinguet, who retired in 2012, this was considered, along with its neighbor Foreau, one of the two iconic estates in Vouvray. Pinguet was the last in the extended family of Gaston Huet, who founded the estate in 1928. I had the honor to experience part of that legacy in the new tasting room at the winery with the daughter, Sarah, of the current owner, Anthony Hwang, and their winemaker, Jean-Bernard Berthomé. Sarah, like her father, is an American of Chinese descent. While there has understandably been a great deal of speculation about what will happen to such a unique property under foreign ownership, I see little cause for concern. Quite the contrary. Sarah’s father bought into the estate over ten years ago following Gaston Huet’s death in 2002 at the age of 92, and has nursed it gently from strength to strength via investments. No one here has better vineyards. Of their current 35 hectares, 6 are in the Clos du Bourg, the oldest and shallowest site—20 centimeters of soil on a bed of limestone—in Vouvray, dating back to the 8th century. It is also there where they have their oldest vines. Le Mont, 7 hectares on the rim of the cliff, has soils that are only a tad deeper, but the clay is interspresed with silex. Le Haut Lieu, 12 hectares even higher on the plateau, has much deeper soils, but never acheives the same levels of ripeness as the other two blocks. All have been biodynamic since 1993. Interestingly, it was only in 1995 that the estate began doing selective late-harvest wines. Before that, the blocks were crushed as lots, which is why there were no moelleux produced between 1976 and 1985. That the current owners are dedicated to this style of wine becomes abundantly clear when one learns that they have also invested in Tokaji (Hwang purchased Királyudvar in the late 1990s), where they have another 65 hectares of vineyards that have been certified as biodynamic since 2011.